


Mirror, Mirror

by GMTH



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Challenge Response, Dreams and Nightmares, HP Reversathon, M/M, Mindfuck, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-10
Updated: 2005-07-10
Packaged: 2018-10-27 05:42:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10802922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GMTH/pseuds/GMTH
Summary: Harry keeps having nightmares about Sirius.





	Mirror, Mirror

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maeglin_Yedi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maeglin_Yedi/gifts).



> Written for Maeglinyedi for the 2005 HP Reversathon fest. The prompt was _Harry/Voldemort, not outright non-con. Dubious consent is good, and manipulation is even better. No redeemed!Voldemort or dark!Harry. I'd love to see them together as they are. Kink is good, but by no means necessary. And I prefer a healthy dose of plot with my NC-17 first-time smut._
> 
> Thanks to Amanuensis for the fast and thorough beta, to Nimori for helping me through the rough spots, and to Fluffyllama for doing such a great job putting this fest together.
> 
> Written before the release of _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,_ so does not match canon events in that book or beyond.

Dark clouds started to gather about halfway through the feast. Just a few wisps at first, low on the horizon, that thickened and spread in all directions like blots of ink being slowly absorbed into a piece of parchment. Most of the guests ignored the darkening sky to concentrate instead on their food, but the sight made Harry feel uneasy. He couldn't help glancing upwards between bites, watching as the sun disappeared from view. By the time the crew of house-elves had circulated among the tables, depositing a piece of wedding cake in front of each guest, the chill of an approaching storm was heavy in the air. 

The fifth time Harry looked up, Sirius looked up, too. He sighed. "I told them not to get married outdoors," he said, shoveling a huge bite of cake into his mouth. "But that's your father all over. Whatever Lily wants, Lily gets." 

Harry nodded, smiling, and pushed his plate away. "You're not going to eat that?" Sirius asked around his mouthful, pointing to Harry's untouched cake with his fork. Harry shook his head, and Sirius dragged the plate closer. 

The wind started to blow, hard enough to raise small whitecaps on the surface of the lake. The tablecloth flapped against Harry's leg. A smattering of applause from the edge of the crowd caught his attention, and he looked up to see the bride and groom walking hand in hand to the small clearing in front of the top table. Their faces were blurry and indistinct. Harry's scar started to throb. 

"So," Sirius said, wiping his mouth on his napkin. "What does Ron think of the Cannons' chances this season?"

The bride and groom started to dance, and a gust of wind sent the centerpiece tumbling off the table. No one seemed to notice. Harry's heart started to pound, but before he could put voice to the sudden, inexplicable fear that was sweeping over him, a bolt of lightning forked through the sky directly above their heads. The crowd's squeals of panic were lost to the deafening roar of thunder that followed, and as one the guests rose and started running up the hill. "Come on!" Harry shouted, jumping to his feet. A huge drop of rain spattered across his glasses. 

"No," Sirius said, the color draining from his face. He looked up at Harry with wide, haunted eyes. 

"Come _on_!" Harry screamed again, grabbing Sirius's wrist and trying to pull him out of his chair as the wind upended the table and sent it tumbling across the grass.

"I can't!" Sirius jerked his wrist out of Harry's grasp, and he clapped his hand over Harry's. Another bolt of lightning flashed high overhead, and a shadow reared up behind Sirius's chair. As Harry watched, horrified, the shadow folded in on itself and engulfed Sirius, shooting dozens of long, thin tendrils across his chest and around his legs, binding him to the chair in the blink of an eye. Within moments his entire torso was criss-crossed with vines, and still they kept coming, lashing the air over Sirius's head as they swayed in the wind before snapping into place. Ice-cold rain dripped into Harry's eyes as he tried to yank his hand free before the creepers could find their way up his own arm, but Sirius squeezed his fingers so tightly Harry could feel their bones grinding together. 

"Don't go!" Sirius cried, his face livid with fear as the Devil's Snare wrapped itself around his neck. "Don't leave me here alone!" 

***

Harry awoke with a grunt, his heart thrumming a frantic tattoo against his ribcage. He propped himself up on his elbows, blinking rapidly in the darkness, and shivered as the blanket slipped down his chest, exposing his sweat-soaked skin to the damp air. His stomach churned as he tried to remember where he was. And then a burst of lightning brought the curtains of his four-poster into blurred relief, and Harry sighed and fell back against his pillows as the thunder made the water jug on his bedside table vibrate. 

A dream. Another stupid fucking dream. 

He pulled the blanket back up around his shoulders and buried his face in the pillow, trying to ignore the pain in his scar. Rain bulleted against the window next to his bed, driven against the glass in irregular patterns by the howling wind, and Harry forced himself to concentrate on the sound until his heart rate returned to normal. The distraction helped for a while. But every flash of lightning turned the canopy over his four-poster into a malevolent shadow that seemed to be waiting for him to fall asleep again to drop down and smother him. Harry was grateful when the thunder was nothing more than a distant rumble.  

It took another hour after that before he could finally relax enough to drift back to sleep. 

***

"All right, Harry?" Hermione looked up from her Arithmancy book as Harry and Ron slid into seats next to her. "You look a bit peaky." 

Ron, who had spent the last twenty minutes with Harry as they dressed, gathered their books, and left Gryffindor Tower for the Great Hall, peered curiously at Harry as though seeing him for the first time. "She's right, mate," he said. "You look like something the kneazle coughed up."

"Thanks," Harry said, spooning eggs on to his plate. He cleared his throat. "I'm okay. I just didn't sleep well, is all." 

"Ah." Hermione's face softened with concern. "Is your scar bothering you again?" she whispered, leaning forward so they could hear the question. 

"No. Well, yes," he amended quickly as Hermione's lips turned downward in a skeptical frown. "But that's nothing new. It's been hurting almost continuously since Sirius --" He looked away. "Since June." 

"So you must be used to it by now, eh?" said Ron, taking a huge bite of his toast. "Ow!"

"Ron, don't be so insensitive!" Hermione's face was flushed. "Who could get used to that?"

Harry couldn't help but grin as Ron scowled at Hermione and reached under the table to rub his leg. "Is that what kept you awake, then?" she asked, still frowning as she turned her attention back to Harry. 

"No. I --" _had a nightmare._ It was right on the tip of his tongue, but one glance at Hermione's expression kept him from blurting it out. Instinct told him she'd get very nervous and preachy if he admitted he'd been having odd dreams again. "I guess it must have been the storm," he said instead, looking down at his plate. 

A loud rustling of wings brought about an end to the discussion, and Harry glanced up at the approaching post owls with a silent sigh of relief. There was nothing for him, of course, but a screech owl dropped onto the table in front of Hermione with her copy of _The Daily Prophet_ , and he glanced idly at the headlines as she dug a few knuts out of the pocket of her robes. The word "Azkaban" caught his eye, and the bite of egg he'd just shoveled into his mouth suddenly tasted like dust. 

"I'm through," he said, his voice rough as he pushed his plate away. "I'll meet you in Transfiguration." 

***

The crowd roared as Harry flew over the stands, bent low over his broomstick. Katie Bell streaked by below him, her long dark hair flowing loose in the breeze, flying so aggressively the Slytherin Chasers had no choice but to scatter. Harry swooped back over the pitch with Malfoy on his tail, rolling in mid-air to avoid a Bludger rocketing toward his head. Behind him Malfoy yelped and swerved out of the Bludger's path as well, and as Harry righted himself he caught a glimpse of something gold fluttering on the ground near the Slytherin goal posts. 

Harry flattened himself against the handle of his Firebolt and sped off, praying the Bludger had distracted Malfoy enough that he hadn't seen the Snitch. He was halfway down the pitch when the sun sent another glint of gold flashing in his eyes, and Harry pulled up short as a second Snitch whizzed by overhead. Startled, he looked quickly from one end of the pitch to the other. There were definitely two Snitches on the field. 

Then a third flew past, and a fourth. A fifth. More, and more still, great bunches of them appearing out of nowhere until the air around Harry was thick with the buzzing of golden wings. The noise of the crowd grew faint by comparison. Alicia Spinnet drifted by beneath him, shrieking with fear and waving her arms to ward off a cloud of Snitches bearing down on her, and as Harry watched one of Alicia's arms bloomed crimson as the Snitches' wings tore dozens of small gashes in her skin. 

Panicking, Harry reached out to grab the nearest one, hoping an end to the game would also put an end to the attack, but it darted out of range before he could get his fingers around it. Another desperate grab and he had one in his fist, and he shouted with triumph as the hundreds of Snitches now circling the pitch shot up into the sky like some huge, golden storm cloud. 

The crowd's frantic cries rushed back into Harry's ears, along with the piercing screech of Madame Hooch's whistle. A throng of people were running onto the pitch below, and Harry dived down toward them. A dark-haired figure in scarlet Quidditch robes was lying on the ground. "Katie," Harry gasped, jumping off his Firebolt a few feet above the pitch. Her head was at an impossible angle to the rest of her body. "Katie!" 

All around him, people were screaming as they ran to where Katie had fallen. Blood pounded through Harry's ears as he and Angelina reached Katie at the same moment and fell to their knees at her side. "Katie, Katie," he chanted, rocking back and forth on his knees. "Please be all right, Katie, please be all right." Angelina's face was streaked with tears as she reached out with one trembling hand and grasped Katie's shoulder to turn her over, and Harry's heart seized with horror as the bloodied face came into view.

It was Sirius.

***

Ron and Hermione were whispering to each other behind one of Hermione's books when Harry returned to the common room. When they saw him coming Ron looked away, his ears going pink, and Hermione gave him an overly bright smile. 

"Am I interrupting something?" he asked, tossing his Potions text on the table. 

"No, not at all." Hermione started gathering up her things. "I was just telling Ron how exhausted I am. I think I'm going to go to bed. Goodnight!" She gave Ron a meaningful look as she hoisted her bag onto her shoulder, then nodded at Harry and threaded her way through the tables to the steps. 

"So," Harry said, sliding into his seat. "What does she want you to talk to me about, then?"

"Oh, nothing. You know." Ron suddenly became very interested in an ink blotch on the table top. "I, erm... I just happened to mention that you didn't sleep very well again last night, that's all. She thought I should ask you if everything's okay."

Harry's eyes widened. "How did you know about that?"

Ron scratched at the ink stain with one dirty fingernail. "I heard you moaning."

"Oh." Harry felt the heat creeping into his cheeks. He hadn't realized. "That was nothing. I... it was nothing." 

"Okay," Ron said, sounding both relieved and uncertain, and both turned back to their books. The words swam before Harry's eyes, nothing more than gibberish, and after a few minutes Harry realized neither he nor Ron had turned a page or written a word since Hermione had left the table. 

"All right," he said finally, shifting his chair closer to Ron's so he wouldn't be overheard. "The thing is, I've... I've been having some weird dreams lately, that's all." 

Ron's brow furrowed. "Dreams? What kind of dreams?"

"Well, nightmares actually. About Sirius." 

Ron's face went white. "How long?"

"A few months. Not long after that night in the Department of Mysteries." Harry shrugged. "They started out okay. Running with Snuffles on the grounds, standing on Platform 9 3/4 waiting for the Hogwarts Express, stuff like that. But lately... lately they've been getting really horrible." The quill began to shake in his hands, and he dropped it onto the table, hoping Ron wouldn't press for specifics.  

"But Harry!" Ron's voice dropped to an urgent whisper. "It might be You-Know-Who doing it again!"

"No," Harry said firmly, waving the idea away. He'd known this would happen if he told his friends about the dreams. "This isn't like that. The dreams he sent were visions of the things he was thinking about. Places he wanted to go, or things he wanted to do. I never dreamed about myself when he was doing it, not unless I was inside his body or seeing things through his eyes or something."

"But your scar! You said your scar's been hurting you --" 

"It doesn't hurt now like it did then!" Harry made an irritated noise. "I think... I dunno, I think he's just been frustrated all the time lately, since Malfoy's dad and those other Death Eaters went to Azkaban." He looked Ron straight in the eye. "Trust me, I know exactly what it feels like when it's him. And this isn't it." 

"Okay," Ron said, but Harry could tell Ron didn't quite believe him. "If you say so." 

"I say so." 

Ron nodded, and each turned back to his books and pretended to study. A pang of regret poked Harry in the stomach as Ron shifted uncomfortably in his chair, peeking up at Harry when he thought Harry wasn't looking, and for a moment Harry toyed with the idea of performing a memory charm when they returned to the dormitory. Then Ron looked up with a forced smile and said, "You know, maybe he's trying to tell you something." 

"Who? Voldemort?"

Ron winced. "No! Sirius." 

"What are you talking about?"

Ron leaned in close again. "After my Uncle Gideon died, Mum started having dreams about him. He kept asking her if she knew where his brown trousers were. Night after night for weeks he'd appear, looking for these brown trousers. Mum didn't know what to make of it. And then one day she stumbled across this pair of brown trousers that had been at the bottom of the washing, and it turned out there were fifty Galleons in the pocket. The dreams stopped after that." 

Harry stiffened in his seat. "Seriously?" he asked, trying to keep his tone casual, but his mind was suddenly racing a million miles an hour. He turned away to look at the fire. 

"Yeah. 'Course, it was rubbish, really. Dad figures she must have known the money was there all along and just forgotten about it." He gave Harry a sharp look. "Harry? You listening to me?" 

"Sure. Yeah, of course." Harry shook his head and looked up at Ron with a sheepish smile. 

"Because it really was rubbish, you know. " Ron's expression was a mixture of regret and anxiety. "I shouldn't have mentioned it." 

Harry forced himself to laugh, and Ron's face relaxed. "No, it's okay. Sounds like rubbish to me, too." 

"Yeah." Ron yawned. "Well, listen mate, as long as you're all right --" He shot Harry a questioning glance, and Harry nodded. "I'm going to turn in."

"Yeah, me too." The common room was nearly empty now, and those who remained paid no attention as Harry and Ron stood and started packing up their belongings. Harry's brain was still humming with Ron's words. "Listen, Ron," Harry said under his breath as they started climbing the stairs. "You're not going to tell Hermione about any of this, are you? I mean, she'll have kittens if she knows what's going on. She'll never believe it isn't Voldem-- You-Know-Who. She'd probably go to Dumbledore, get him to force me to start Occlumency lessons again, and I am never, ever going back to Snape for help."

Ron didn't answer, and Harry's heart sank as he imagined what Ron must be thinking. He braced himself for another argument, but then Ron shook his head and said, "Nah, I won't tell her if you don't want me to." 

"Thanks." Harry sighed his relief. "What are you going to tell her when she asks why I was moaning last night, then?"

Ron's face lit with a wicked grin. "Oh, that's easy. I'll just tell her you were having a wank." 

***

There was no mersong to guide him this time. Harry kept listening for it, but the only thing he could hear was the current whooshing past his ears as he cut smoothly through the cool, dark water. 

There. That was where he'd nearly been dragged down by the grindylows last time. Wasn't it? Wait, no. He'd passed that spot ten minutes ago. Maybe. It was so hard to tell! Every clump of weeds looked like every other clump of weeds. And it was dark this far underwater, so dark he could easily swim right by the spot without even realizing it. He could end up in another part of the lake entirely, and then what would happen? 

Harry's skin began to prickle with fear. His hour was nearly up.

Adrenaline boiled through his veins, and he swam faster. Something had to look familiar soon, it just had to. Just a bit further, that was all it would take. He was close. He knew he had to be close. 

And then he saw it. The darkness ahead parted to reveal a huge stone statue, not the giant merperson where Ron and the others had been tied, but a black knight seated on a rearing horse. As Harry swam closer, he could see a slumped figure tied to the horse's back legs, its head bowed, dark hair fanning out in all directions. A stream of small bubbles rose from the corner of its mouth. 

Thank God. Sirius was still alive.

Harry swallowed a great mouthful of water in his relief, and it burned going down. Time was running out. He shot to Sirius's side and grabbed him by the forearms, shaking him so hard the back of his head smacked against the stone horse's hocks. His eyes blinked open halfway, and Harry shook him again. 

"Whozit?" he croaked. His voice sounded like it was coming from a million miles away. Harry shook him a third time, and Sirius's gray eyes finally focused on his face. "Harry?" Seeing Harry floating before him seemed to give Sirius strength, and he started to struggle against the ropes binding him to the statue. "Help me, Harry!" 

_I'm trying!_ Harry shouted, but the words were lost to the huge silver bubble that emerged from his lips. He swam in a tight circle around the horse's legs, eyes darting back and forth as he searched the lake bottom for something sharp to use against Sirius's bonds. There was nothing in sight. 

"No, not like this!" Sirius cried, struggling harder still as Harry tried to work his fingers under the ropes. "You can't help me here! You have to go!"

Harry shook his head violently. _I'm not leaving you here!_ But before the thought was fully formed something tugged hard at the back of his robes and began pulling him upward through the water.

"Use the mirror!" Sirius shouted as Harry kicked and flailed his arms, fighting the force that was dragging him away. Sirius was quickly shrinking to a small black dot far below, but his shrieks still echoed in Harry's ears. "The mirror, Harry, the mirror! Help me! Harrrryyyyyyy!"

***

"You going down to breakfast, Ron?" 

Harry jerked awake with a gasp as Neville's voice filtered in through his bed curtains. He could still hear Sirius screaming his name. 

"Yeah. Just a minute." Harry held his breath and pressed his prickling scar into the pillow, hardly daring to breathe though his lungs burned with the need to catch up with his racing heart. "Okay," Ron said, and Harry lifted his head from the pillow just enough to gulp down a lungful of oxygen. "Let's go." 

"Should we wake Harry?" Neville sounded very close now, just on the other side of the hangings. Harry could imagine him reaching out to pull them aside. He dropped his head back to the pillow and closed his eyes. 

"Nah. It's Saturday. Let him have a lie-in." 

Harry lay very still until the sound of his friends' footsteps had faded away. Then, just to be sure Neville wouldn't burst back into the room, mumbling breathlessly about forgetting his wand, Harry counted to sixty. Or at least, he tried to count to sixty. By fifty-four he couldn't stand the anticipation any longer, and he leapt out of bed, throwing the bed curtains aside. 

Moments later he yanked them shut again, a cloth-wrapped bundle in one hand, his wand in the other. A quick shake in mid-air, and the pieces of Sirius's mirror fell out of the bundle onto Harry's sheets. 

" _Reparo._ " 

The dirty glass shards knitted themselves together and flew back into the frame, and Harry raised it to his face with shaking hands. A thin sliver was missing straight up the middle; it made Harry's reflection looked oddly cracked and distorted. 

Maybe it hadn't worked when he'd tried at the end of last year, but this time was going to be different. It had to be: Sirius himself had told Harry this was the way to reach him.

"Sirius?" 

Nothing happened. Harry waited, holding his breath, refusing to blink. Any moment now Sirius's face was going to flicker into view, and Harry didn't want to miss it. 

"Sirius!" he said again, more urgently. 

Still nothing. Harry's eyes began to water.  

He tried again, and again, a half dozen more times, holding the mirror at different angles so the missing sliver bisected his reflection from forehead to cheek to chin. His heart sank lower and lower as the minutes ticked by with no response. When it finally hit the pit of his stomach, he tore his eyes away from his mutilated reflection and shoved the mirror under his pillow. 

"Thanks for nothing, Uncle Gideon," he murmured, aching with disappointment as he flopped back down on the bed and curled up on his side.

 

*** 

"The mirror..."

_I tried, Sirius! It doesn't work!_

"The mirror, Harry. The mirror..."

***

"I'm going to bed." 

"C'mon, Ron," Harry said, pulling another Exploding Snap pack from his bag. "One more game. It's early yet."

"It's after midnight! I'm beat." Ron yawned and tossed a Chocolate Frog across the table at Harry. "Here. You won, fair and square."

"Thanks," Harry said. He fiddled with a corner of the wrapper while Ron packed up his books and parchment and got to his feet. 

"You coming?" Ron asked, slinging the bag over his shoulder. 

"No. You go ahead. I'll be up in a bit." 

The bag slid off Ron's shoulder again and landed on the table with a thump. "Harry. What's with you lately?"

Harry looked up, surprised. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you've been staying up late for weeks now. When was the last time you went to bed at a decent hour?"

Harry shrugged, but his insides were squirming. When had Ron become so damn perceptive? 

"I waited up for you the other night, you know. Just to see what time you'd come in. I swear, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were afraid to go to sleep..." His voice trailed off as realization dawned across his face, and Harry tensed. "You're not still having those dreams, are you?"

"No!" Harry said, much more forcefully than he'd intended. "No," he said again, keeping his voice level this time. "I just... haven't been sleepy, that's all."

"Right. That's why you're looking so exhausted all the time lately." 

Harry's stomach began to churn. "Look," he said, his teeth clenched. "I don't want to talk about it. I said I'm not tired, and I meant it. Just drop it, okay?" 

Ron stood watching Harry for a moment, his throat working as though he were fighting the words trying to burst out of it. Then he hoisted his bag off the table again and stalked off across the empty common room, throwing a curt, "Yeah. Okay," over his shoulder. 

Harry continued to toy with the Chocolate Frog wrapper until he heard the faint thud of the dormitory door slamming shut. Then he pushed the Chocolate Frog aside and crossed his arms on the table in front of him, dropping his head onto his forearms. Ron had really hit a nerve, whether he knew it or not. Lately, it just seemed easier to avoid sleep altogether than risk having to spend another night locked in a nightmare, another morning whispering Sirius's name to the battered mirror even though he knew it would remain mute before he even started. 

And he thought he'd been so clever about hiding it, too. But if Ron, of all people, had noticed, well, Harry might as well have stood in the middle of the common room and shouted about it at the top of his lungs. He wondered if Neville or Dean or Seamus had noticed. Hermione surely had. It was a wonder she hadn't approached him about it herself; he was certain he'd be hearing from her soon. 

Harry's head began to feel as though it were stuffed with wads of cotton. He supposed he should be thinking about how to respond to Hermione's inevitable questions, but it was just too great an effort right then. The darkness behind his eyelids was so alluring, and the armchair was so squashy and comfortable... what a relief it would be to just slide off into sleep and stop worrying about that stupid mirror... 

Harry's head snapped up, and he leaned back in his chair, shaking the cobwebs out of his brain. That stupid mirror. The best way to avoid dealing with it at the moment was to force himself to stay awake.  

With an annoyed grunt, Harry swept the Chocolate Frog off the table and tore the wrapper open. The card fluttered into his lap as he bit the frog in half, and chewing the sweet without tasting it, Harry picked it up and saw a familiar bearded face wearing half-moon spectacles. 

He froze. Hardly daring to breathe, he stared at the card for a long time, watching Dumbledore move in and out of the frame before slowly turning the card over.  

_Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel._

Harry's heart began to race. Of course! First he'd dreamed about Sirius and the Devil's Snare. Then there had been the Quidditch match with the hundreds of Snitches. And then... that statue of a black knight on a horse wasn't a statue at all... 

It was a giant stone chess piece. 

Exhaustion forgotten, Harry leapt to his feet and charged up the steps to the dormitory. He managed to contain his excitement just before slamming the door open and awakening everyone inside, but it was a close thing. At the last second, he held his breath and pushed the door open as slowly as he could, wincing as it creaked. The room beyond was dark, and heavy breathing and snores from all four of the occupied beds indicated that Ron, Neville, Dean, and Seamus were all asleep, but Harry tiptoed in nonetheless. He stopped at the foot of his own bed and rummaged quietly through his trunk, finding the two items he sought by touch alone. Then he clambered into his bed and pulled the bed curtains shut, throwing a silencing spell around them as he did so. 

" _Lumos._ I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." The sound of his labored breathing bounced off the silencing spell and echoed in his ears as the ink spread across the surface of the map, forming the familiar greeting. Harry grinned. "All right, Padfoot, Prongs, Moony," he said, tapping the map again with his wand. "I need your help. Show me the Mirror of Erised." 

*** 

The corridors were empty, and Harry hurried along as quickly as the Invisibility Cloak would allow, holding the lit end of his wand aloft so he could keep an eye on the map as he went. The mirror showed up as a small blinking square in a section of the easternmost dungeon Harry had never visited, and he consulted the map frequently to ensure the tiny dot labeled "Harry Potter" was heading in the right direction. 

Within minutes, he was navigating the rabbit warren of corridors that comprised the area around the mirror. This far from the Slytherin dormitories and Potions classroom there were no torches on the walls, and Harry slipped the cloak off his head so he could see by the light of his wand. His heart seemed to beat faster and faster as every step brought him nearer his goal, and the blood rushing through his head made his scar pulse. He ignored it, picking up the pace until he broke into a breathless jog. 

And then he found it. A small wooden door with an iron ring for a handle. It looked like it hadn't been disturbed for years. A surge of joy and excitement so intense it almost seemed to be coming from outside himself swept over Harry as he held his wand high over his head to examine the rotting wood. "Mischief managed," he whispered. "Thanks, guys." The map wiped itself clean, and Harry stuffed it into his back pocket. 

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Harry threw the Invisibility Cloak over his shoulder and grabbed hold of the ring, giving it an experimental tug. The door didn't budge. He pulled harder, and after a moment the hinges started to squeal in protest. The sound was horribly loud in the silence of the corridor, and Harry jumped. Cursing himself he pulled harder still, using both hands now, and the door reluctantly gave way, its bottom scraping against the stone floor as it swung open toward him. 

He slipped inside, and the door banged shut behind him. The room was pitch black and the air was thick and smelled of mold. Harry lit his wand and shone the thin beam of light around the room, exposing piles of broken crates, broomsticks without tails, and rusted cauldrons. Harry lifted his wand higher, and a hulking shadow flared into being against the back wall. 

The mirror.  

It looked exactly as Harry remembered it, though the glass was dusty and looked duller than it had in his first year. He watched himself approach it, the wandlight highlighting the flush of anticipation in his cheeks, and as he edged closer a dark shape began to take form along the mirror's bottom edge. 

"Sirius!" he shouted, rushing toward the mirror. He fell to his knees in front of it, his hands braced on the frame on either side, and stared wildly at his reflection. The figure in the mirror was lying motionless on its side, its face turned away from Harry's view, but he knew it had to be Sirius. The mirror was supposed to show his deepest and most desperate desire, so it could be no one else. But it made no sense for Sirius to be hurt... Harry certainly didn't desire _that_. 

"Sirius," Harry moaned. "Please be all right, please be all right." 

The figure in the mirror began to roll toward him, and a sickening wave of disorientation made Harry's stomach roll over. He'd been here before. In this very situation, or at least one very nearly like it. This... was this another dream? He shivered as cold sweat broke out all over his body, and still the figure was rolling. The bloody face finally came into view, and the cracked lips formed words that echoed in Harry's mind although he knew they hadn't been spoken aloud: 

"Harry. Help me." 

"I want to, Sirius," Harry croaked, reaching one hand out to touch the glass over Sirius's face. To his astonishment, instead of carving a handprint in the dust as he'd expected, his fingers disappeared into the surface of the mirror. Harry jerked his hand back as though it had been burned. Sirius was still staring at him with wide, bloodshot eyes, and without giving the matter another thought Harry stood and leapt forward, through the glass.  

His knees buckled as his feet touched down on the other side, and suddenly his head was splitting in half along the line of his scar. Harry stumbled and fell to the ground, and the air rushed out of his lungs with a painful whoosh.

_"Expelliarmus!"_

Harry felt his wand jerk free of his hand, and with an almighty effort that cost him the last of his strength, he rolled onto his back. A dark form loomed over him, twirling his wand in its unnaturally long, skeletal fingers. 

"Welcome, Harry Potter," Voldemort said. 

***

Harry struggled to sit up. His limbs felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each. 

Voldemort chuckled. "It's disorienting here, isn't it. It took me quite a while to get used to it myself."

An eon passed, and Harry finally managed to maneuver himself into a sitting position. He slumped back against the wall and stared up at Voldemort. The malevolent red eyes were trained on his face. "How... how did you get here?" Harry's voice was no louder than a whisper. The air in the room was so oppressively thick he could scarcely breathe. "How did you get into Hogwarts?"

"This is magical space, Harry. Anyone with magical powers can enter or leave it." Voldemort's lipless mouth curled into a horrible grin, and Harry shuddered. "Provided he knows how to find his way." 

Harry's eyes darted around the room. The stone walls were solid, unseamed. No sign of an exit anywhere. "What do you want?" he asked, his voice quivering as he pressed the back of his head against the wall behind him. There was no give at all. He wasn't going to be able to get out the same way he came in. 

An amused glint gleamed in Voldemort's eyes. "I want to talk about your desires. That is, after all, what this mirror is all about, isn't it? Fulfilling one's deepest and most desperate desires?" He stared directly into Harry's eyes, and Harry felt the edges of his mind starting to give. His scar burned, and he tore his eyes away. "Tell me, Harry Potter: what do you want more than anything else in the world, right this very minute?" 

Harry didn't even have to pause to consider his answer. "To see you dead," he replied, pleased despite himself to hear his voice was back to full strength.  

"Yes, I can believe that." Voldemort chuckled. "And I suppose you'd like to be the one to kill me." He raised one open hand. Harry's wand floated in the air over his palm. "That will be rather difficult to do without this, won't it?" A sudden tongue of flame shot up the length of wood, and a moment later all that remained was a small pile of ash around Voldemort's feet. Harry nearly choked on the smell. 

Voldemort's smile grew wider. "Of course, you could try to do it with your bare hands," he said, tapping the tip of his own wand against his thigh, and Harry got the message. He had no hope of overcoming Voldemort without magic.  

This was it, then. The culmination of that stupid prophecy. He'd cheated death that night in the graveyard, and again in the Ministry of Magic, but now his luck had finally run out. 

"So you sent me those dreams... you lured me here to kill _me_ , is that it?" Harry wondered why he didn't feel more afraid, why, in fact, he couldn't feel anything but a deep void where his belly used to be over the loss of his wand. The rest of his body felt entirely numb. Even his scar had stopped aching. 

"That would fulfill one of my greatest desires, I admit it," Voldemort replied, and Harry was startled to hear a tinge of regret in his tone. "I would so dearly love to see you dead, Harry Potter. Unfortunately, that's not possible here." 

Harry's heart skipped a beat. "What?"

"The purpose of this mirror is to fulfill desires, not to subvert them," Voldemort said. "It is the greatest desire of every living being to remain alive as long as possible. I cannot kill you here." 

Voldemort's wand twitched, and Harry's head began to spin. "Then why did you --"

"And I didn't send you those dreams, either," Voldemort said, cutting across Harry's question. "I just intercepted them. Twisted them a bit to make your godfather's message a bit clearer."

"He's alive?" A dart of hope made Harry's insides wriggle. 

"In a manner of speaking. He can't return to the physical world." Voldemort's voice dropped to a whisper. "But he can be with you here." 

Harry was so dizzy now he couldn't be sure he'd heard the words correctly. "That's impossible," he said. 

"Nothing is impossible inside this mirror," Voldemort whispered fiercely. "Not if it is something you truly desire." 

Harry blinked, trying to clear his head. Nothing was making any sense. "I... I can't think," he said.

"Then don't," Voldemort replied. "Desire is not about rational thought, anyway. Just tell me: do you want to be with your godfather again?"

 _Help me, Harry,_ Sirius said, and the water was cold against Harry's skin. A Snitch flew by his face, and when he went to grab for it it turned into a vine of Devil's Snare that wrapped smoothly around his wrists. His scar prickled, and when his vision cleared the vine had turned into the shape of Voldemort's long fingers on his skin. 

Voldemort's fingers tightened around Harry's wrists, startling him out of his daydream. "Answer me, Harry. Yes or no?" 

What choice did he have? His hour was almost up. He swallowed hard and closed his eyes.  

"Yes." 

Voldemort hauled Harry to his feet. "I'm sure Black will be eternally grateful," he said, pushing Harry back against the wall with his free hand. "But first, you must do something for me." He raised the hand holding Harry's wrists, pinning them against the wall, and dropped his other hand to press against the zip of Harry's jeans. 

Harry tensed. "What are you doing?" he gasped, trying to twist out of Voldemort's grip as the long fingers started manipulating the button. Another wave of disorientation made his knees give way, and for a moment Voldemort's grip was the only thing keeping him upright. 

"I am fulfilling my own desire first," Voldemort replied, reaching inside Harry's jeans to pull his flaccid cock free. "What else did you expect?" 

"No!" Harry's voice squeaked as Voldemort's hand contracted around his cock, and to his horror he felt a rush of blood pouring in to pulse against Voldemort's palm. His gorge rose at the betrayal of his own responses, and for one long, dreadful moment he thought he was going to be sick. He wanted to kick, to bite, to clock his forehead against Voldemort's sneering face, anything to get away and stop the assault before it went any further, but his body was still acting like there was three times the usual amount of gravity in the room.

"I want to see you powerless," Voldemort hissed, watching as Harry's cock hardened in his fist. "And judging from your reaction, you obviously want that, too." 

That brought Harry up short. "No," he rasped. "No!" God, it was magic, it had to be magic. He didn't -- _couldn't_ \-- want this on his own, no matter what Voldemort said. 

Voldemort smiled and began a slow slip-slide-squeeze around the length of Harry's cock. "You do," he said, and Harry shivered as Voldemort's hand glided across the tender head, smearing the moisture already beginning to form at its tip. "You must. I can't make you do anything you don't want to do in here." A few whispered words and the fingers surrounding him grew warm and slick. Harry struggled to keep his back from arching, but the sensation of his cock gliding through Voldemort's tight, oily fist made his hips buck as though they had a mind of their own. The pressure began to build, spiraling up from his balls and out across every synapse, faster now, longer strokes, base to tip, so tight and hot and ohgod _ohgod_ how could something so unbelievably wrong ever feel so _good_? 

The first horrifying, exhilarating wave of pleasure made him gasp.  

The second made him moan. 

"Don't fight it," Voldemort whispered, releasing Harry's wrists. "The sooner I get what I want, the sooner you get what you want." 

_Sirius. This is all for Sirius_

"I don't -- oh, God." He felt the tip of Voldemort's wand brush against the base of his cock, and a surge of ecstasy made it impossible to speak, or think, or do anything but feel. A soft swish of air brushed his cheek as Voldemort said something Harry couldn't understand, and he crumpled against Voldemort's chest, cock pulsing, come splashing across Voldemort's hands. From a very great distance Harry heard Voldemort laughing, and a second climax made his entire body writhe, this one pulling something from deep inside his gut. A third made him seize, this time with agony rather than pleasure, and as Harry screamed and thrashed a rush of something bittersweet flowed across his tongue. 

Harry was only vaguely aware of Voldemort stepping away, until a sharp pain in his shoulder made him realize he'd hit the floor. His heart was pounding so rapidly his entire body shook with every beat, but other than that he felt... empty. Not just numb, but hollow. As though there were nothing whatsoever left inside. 

He lay on the floor for a long time, drenched in cold sweat, small sparks of relief shooting through his belly as he became aware that yes, his stomach was still there, his lungs were still there, everything hurt, but he was still alive. Yet something was missing. He couldn't put his finger on precisely what it was, but he knew it was something vital. 

The hem of Voldemort's dark robes moved into his line of sight, and Harry struggled to lift his head. "What did you do to me?" he croaked. 

"I made you powerless," Voldemort replied, cold triumph in his voice, and suddenly Harry realized what he'd lost. 

"My magic," he whispered. 

"Gone."

"No," he said again, though he knew it was true. 

"I've stripped you of it. And you allowed me to do it, Harry. There's no other way it would have been possible in here." 

"No!"

Voldemort's laugh made the hairs on the back of Harry's neck prickle and rise. "And the most amusing part is, you could have left at any time. I told you, anyone with magical powers can enter or leave this room if he knows the way. How unfortunate for you that that option no longer exists." 

_This can't be happening._   

A wave of nausea nearly overwhelmed him as he heaved himself into a sitting position, and he choked as a stream of bile burned the back of his throat. 

Voldemort laughed again. "Take heart," he said. "At least you'll be with your godfather soon." 

Harry glared up at the dark figure looming over him. "Then he is alive?" 

"No, he's quite dead." Voldemort's smile was the coldest Harry had ever seen. 

Harry's blood turned to ice. 

"I may not be able to kill you, Harry. But you'll take care of that yourself, soon enough."

 _This is a dream. It has to be._

Desperate to keep Voldemort talking long enough to think of a way to escape, Harry babbled the first thing that came into his head. "You fucking coward. This is the only way you could manage to kill me, isn't it. You were too afraid to face me in battle like a real man." 

"What? And take a chance that another fool who 'loves' you would be willing to sacrifice themselves for you like your mother did?" He chuckled. "Unlike you, I am able to learn from my mistakes." 

_Wake up!_

"They'll find me, you know," he said, panic slipping into his voice. "Dumbledore, Ron, _someone_ will find me." 

Voldemort smiled. "You cling to that hope. Hope will help keep you alive, for a bit longer, anyway. And I _want_ you to suffer, Harry Potter. I want you to suffer as I did those thirteen long years. My only regret is your pain will be over in a matter of days."

 _Please, please, wake UP!_

Voldemort's wand swished through the air, and a whirl of dark smoke began rising from his feet. "Say hello to your godfather for me," he said as his form starting to fade from Harry's view. "And your parents." 

The high, cold laugh echoed in the room long after Voldemort disappeared.


End file.
